Calendar of Events

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

UT Downtown Gallery: First the Wurst - MFA Class of 2023

Category: Exhibitions, visual art, Fine Crafts and Free event

Artists Reception August 28, 5:00 – 7:00 pm
(No food will be served, Gallery is limited to 15 guests at one time, Face Coverings are required)

The UT Downtown Gallery will host a short exhibition of the incoming class of 2023 graduate students. The exhibition includes, printmaking, painting, drawings, sculpture, and video. These ten artists have chosen UTK School of Art as their home for the next three years to complete their Masters studies. The exhibition highlights their current work and their artistic accomplishments prior to arriving at UT. Artists included in the exhibition are:
Delany Bal, Sculpture
Hanna Seggerman, Sculpture
Haley Takahashi, Printmaking
Sean Heiser, Painting
Danqi Cai, Printmaking
Sarah Bernstein, Time Based Art
Zoe Brester-Pennings, Printmaking
Noah Lagle, Printmaking
Emily Rice, Painting + Drawing
Abigail Freed, Time Based Art

Gallery hours are 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday. There is no admission charge. UT Downtown Gallery, 106 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-673-0802, https://downtown.utk.edu

August Social Media Knox Round Table: The Value Of Followers

  • August 26, 2020

Category: Free event and Lecture, panel

Free

This meet up we will focus on the value of followers.

Join us on the morning of August 26th at 9:00 AM for BYOC and conversation! This continues our series of free, monthly meet ups. This meet up we will focus on the value of followers. Come ready to talk about your opinions if followers = success, does follow for follow add value, and seeing followers go up but engagement going down. If you've yet to engage in followership in that capacity, please join to hear other's insight.

Zoom link to follow!
Register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/august-smk-round-table-the-value-of-followers-tickets-114841965410

Sundress Reading Series: August Reading

Category: Free event and Literature, spoken word, writing

The Sundress Reading Series presents Lauren Russell, Shawnte Orion, and JM Wong
for the August installment via Zoom with password 'safta'

Lauren Russell is the author of Descent (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2020) and What’s Hanging on the Hush (Ahsahta Press, 2017). A 2017 NEA Creative Writing Fellow in Poetry, she has also received fellowships from Cave Canem and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing and residencies from the Rose O’Neill Literary House at Washington College, the Millay Colony for the Arts, and City of Asylum/Passa Porta. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, The Brooklyn Rail, Cream City Review, and the anthologies Bettering American Poetry 2015 and Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry, among others. She was assistant director of the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics at the University of Pittsburgh for the last four years. Beginning in the fall of 2020, she will join the faculty of Michigan State University as an assistant professor in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities and director of the Center for Poetry there.

Shawnte Orion attended Paradise Valley Community College for one day, but he is the author Gravity & Spectacle (a collaboration with photographer Jia Oak Baker from Tolsun Books), The Existentialist Cookbook (NYQBooks), and Faithful as the Ground (Fve Oaks Press). He is a former Copper State Haiku Slam Champion and his poems have appeared in Threepenny Review, Barrelhouse, Georgetown Review, New York Quarterly, and elsewhere. He is an editor for Rinky Dink Press and he has performed in bookstores, bars, universities, hair salons, museums, and laundromats. Find out more at his website.

JM Wong is a queer child of the chinese diaspora on turtle island via malaysia/singapore. The point is not to interpret and philosophize the world, but to act to change it.

The Sundress Reading Series is free and virtual until further notice! https://www.facebook.com/events/336027304234675

Knoxville History Project: Tour of the Tennessee Theatre

Category: Festivals, special events and History, heritage

Wednesday August 26 at 7:00 pm

Miss the Tennessee Theatre? It’s a pretty quiet place these days, but its rich, sumptuous interior is just as stunning as it is to some performers who have come up with extravagant similes to describe it (a luxury ocean liner; the inside of a giant Faberge egg). It’s one of the few survivors of the brief Moorish Revival motion-picture palace era.

Jack Neely, author of the 1928 landmark’s official history, will lead a limited tour of it next week (masks and social distancing required, of course). He’ll talk about the architecture of the building, and explain what Desi Arnaz was doing onstage in 1940, discuss whether cowboy legend Tom Mix really did have his horse on that stage, and establish whether the rumors your grandparents heard about risqué dancer Fifi D’Orsay are true.

Cost is $20. Learn more about the tour (and COVID-19 restrictions) at our events page https://knoxvillehistoryproject.org/events/

Metro Drug Coalition: Mental Health First Aid Trainings

  • August 25, 2020 — August 26, 2020

Category: Classes, workshops, Free event, Health, wellness and Kids, family

MDC will be offering our YOUTH and ADULT Mental Health First Aid Trainings in August! This is a free class and open to the general public. For more details on each training, please visit the link below.

Adult Training: August 25
Youth Training: August 26

https://metrodrug.org/get-involved/mental-health-first-aid-training

Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame: To Make Our Voices Heard exhibition

  • August 20, 2020 — October 1, 2020

Category: Exhibitions, visual art, History, heritage and Kids, family

The Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame presents To Make Our Voices Heard: Tennessee Women’s Fight for the Vote, a new traveling exhibition, on display August 20, 2020 through October 1, 2020. The exhibition, created in partnership with the Tennessee State Museum and the Tennessee State Library and Archives, explores the history of the woman’s suffrage movement, Tennessee’s dramatic vote to ratify the 19th Amendment in 1920, and the years that followed.

As a champion for women, the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame is thrilled to showcase the ‘Tennessee Women’s Fight for the Vote’ exhibit at the hall, stated Dana Hart, WBHOF President.

The exhibition is constructed of multiple dynamic panels, offering guests a touch-free experience of archival images, engaging stories, and introductions to the leaders of the fight for and against the cause of woman’s suffrage. The stories begin by detailing the early challenges of racial and gender discrimination and continuing to the organization of African American and white women’s associations to encourage political engagement.

Visitors will also learn about Febb Burn of McMinn County, whose letter to her son, Harry T. Burn, resulted in a last-minute vote that helped change women’s history in the United States forever.

The exhibit includes a Tennessee map, highlighting suffragist activities across the state, including in Knox County, where Lizzie Crozier French gave the first public address by a woman suffragist on a Knoxville street in February 1917.

“Tennessee’s role in becoming the 36th and final state to ratify the 19th Amendment not only solidified women’s right to vote but propelled women across the country to opportunities and futures they never thought possible,” said Chuck Sherrill, State Librarian and Archivist with the Tennessee State Library & Archives. “The hope of the committee is this centennial celebration will do the same all across our state.”

CURRENT SPECIAL COVID-19 HOURS
Monday – Saturday 11 AM – 4 PM

Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, 700 Hall of Fame Dr, Knoxville, TN 37915. Information: 865-633-9000, www.wbhof.com

Ewing Gallery: Exposure and Post Script

Category: Exhibitions, visual art, Free event and Lecture, panel

On August 19th, the Ewing Gallery will be reopening with Exposure, photography selections from the permanent collection and Post Script, an exhibition of work by the UT School of Art MFA class of 2020.

In March, COVID-19 interrupted their thesis exhibitions in the gallery. Post Script brings together the work of these 9 artists: Jillian Hirsch, Kristina Key, April Marten, Ashlee Mays, Emmett Merrill, Angelina Dee Parrino, Dana Potter, William Rerick, and Marla Sweitzer.

Exposure showcases a recent gift of photography the Ewing received at the end of 2019 and other works collected through the years.

All students, faculty, and staff who would like to visit the Ewing Gallery will be expected to wear a face covering and maintain social distancing, as per university guidelines. During this semester we will not be having exhibition receptions. The maximum capacity of the Ewing Gallery will be 25 visitors. For any community members who would like to visit the gallery, the university requires all visitors to complete and submit a health screening questionnaire prior to their visit. The form can be found at https://events.utk.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2020/06/Health-Screening-Form-Content-for-Visitors-7-14-20.pdf.

Completed forms should be emailed to the Ewing Gallery ewing@utk.edu. Please call the gallery with any questions. 865-974-3200.

After Post Script and Exposure, the gallery will continue to exhibit selections from the Ewing Gallery permanent collection.

The Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville
1715 Volunteer Boulevard, Art and Architecture Building, Knoxville, TN 37996
https://ewing-gallery.utk.edu/

East Tennessee Historical Society: Marching to Victory: East Tennessee’s Role in Votes for Women

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Category: Exhibitions, visual art and History, heritage

In celebration of the 100th Anniversary of women gaining the right to vote nationally, the East Tennessee Historical Society announces the opening of a new feature exhibition in the Museum of East Tennessee History’s Streetscape entitled Marching to Victory: East Tennessee’s Role in Votes for Women. The exhibition, which will run from August 18, 2020 through November 2020, tells the story of Tennessee’s history in politics and civic engagement and showcases how Tennessee became the “Perfect 36th” state needed to secure national ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

This special exhibition chronicles the national progression of the Woman Suffrage Movement and highlights East Tennessee contributions including those made by Lizzie Crozier French, Cora E. Burke, and Eliza Shaut White. The Streetscape with its recreation of a 1920s East Tennessee Main Street serves as the backdrop for visitors who are immersed in the drama of the Woman Suffrage Movement. Life-size mannequins dressed as suffragists hoist reproduction campaign signs, as interpretive panels recount the unique stories of how individuals affected change.

The “march to victory” culminates in the display of the letter State Representative Harry T. Burn received from his mother, Febb E. Burn, encouraging him to vote in support of woman suffrage. This letter persuaded Harry Burn to change his vote, breaking a deadlocked state legislature, and ultimately changed history by making the ratification of the 19th Amendment possible. The letter is on loan from Knox County Public Library’s Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection.

Museum hours are Monday – Friday 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.; and Sunday 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. ETHS is following the guidelines within the Tennessee Pledge and has modified the Museum of East Tennessee History’s visitor experience. We ask that all museum visitors support our community’s health by observing these guidelines:
• Wear a mask or cloth face covering at all times (masks are available on site)
• Make regular use of the hand sanitizing stations located throughout the building
• Stay at least six feet away from anyone not in your household and follow one-way path markers
• Stay at home if you are sick

East Tennessee Historical Society, 601 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-215-8824, www.easttnhistory.org

Art Guild at Fairfield Glade: 11th Annual Judged and Juried Fine Art Show Opening Reception

Category: Exhibitions, visual art, Fine Crafts and Free event

The public is cordially invited to the opening reception of the Art Guild at Fairfield Glade’s Eleventh Annual Judged and Juried Fine Arts Show on Friday, August 7, from 5-7 p.m. at the Plateau Creative Art Center (PCAC), 451 Lakeview Dr. in Fairfield Glade. An assortment of beverages will be served at this free opening reception event including fine wine provided by the Stonehaus Winery.

The First National Bank of Tennessee is once again sponsoring the Art Guild’s Judged and Juried Fine Arts Show. Cash prizes will be awarded to Best of Show, First Place, Second Place, and Third Place winners. Additional awards are being sponsored by the Art & Frame Shop, Century 21 Realty, Jerry’s Artarama of Knoxville and Mr. John Anderson. The Judge for this year’s event is Mr. David Butler, Executive Director of the Knoxville Museum.

Reception attendees can view the over 100 show entries and watch the presentations of ribbons and cash awards to the winning artists.

The Judged and Juried Fine Arts Show will feature all genres of art, and these items will be on display at the PCAC from Aug. 7 through Sept. 2. The gallery is open Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m.- 4 p.m.

Art Guild at Fairfield Glade at the Plateau Creative Arts Center, 451 Lakeview Drive, Fairfield Glade, TN 38558. Information: 931-707-7249, www.artguildfairfieldglade.net

Mighty Mud Studios: absorption by Jessie Van der Laan

  • August 7, 2020 — August 31, 2020

Category: Exhibitions, visual art, Fine Crafts and Free event

The socially distanced opening will be on Friday, August 7th, from 6-9pm.

The artist will show a series of drawings from the past two years, examining the simultaneous joys and burdens of motherhood, reflected through natural and artificial landscapes.

Put on your fanciest mask and join the artist!
www.jessievanderlaan.com
http://vacuumshopstudios.wordpress.com

Mighty Mud, 126 and 127 Jennings Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37917. Information: 865-595-1900, www.mightymudclay.com

The Emporium Center: Work by Recipients of Bailey Opportunity Grants

Category: Exhibitions, visual art, Fine Crafts, Free event and Kids, family

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased a new exhibition at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville from August 7-28, 2020. A free reception with the artists will take place on Friday, August 7, from 4:00-7:00 PM to which the public is invited to attend at 50 people at a time. All visitors to the Emporium are asked to wear a mask and maintain physical distancing guidelines. Most of the works are for sale and may be purchased through the close of the exhibition.

The Arts & Culture Alliance presents an exhibit of painting, photography, woodwork, forged metal, jewelry, sculpture, and more by 26 of the individual artists who are recipients of an FY21 Ann and Steve Bailey Opportunity Grant. Artists in the exhibition include: Becky Chaffee, Bobbie Crews, Yvonne Dalschen, Curtis Glover, Jessica Gregory, Lila Holdenried, Alex Jaynes, Shannon Johnson, Jeanne Kidd, David Luttrell, Elysia Mann, Jess Maples, Ryan Mason, Renee Mathies, Tom Owens, John Phillips, Kerry Remp, Annie Rochelle, Nancy Rowland Engle, Ericka Ryba, Roberta Smashey, Emily Taylor, Houston Vandergriff, Brandon Woods, Rodney Yardley, and Conny Zhao.

A part of the Arts & Heritage Fund, the Bailey Opportunity Grants provide financial and technical support to individual artists and small, professionally-oriented arts and culture organizations. The grants are designed to spur continued artistic and administrative growth in innovative, entrepreneurial artists and organizations at any stage in their development. Throughout the next eleven months, the 34 individual artists will utilize their collective $80,300+ for local, regional, and national workshops, studio time, technical equipment, and more.

Visit www.knoxalliance.com/bailey-exhibition-FY21 for more information on the artists.

The exhibitions are on display at the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, in downtown Knoxville. Exhibition hours are BY APPOINTMENT ONLY Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM. For more information, please contact the Arts & Culture Alliance at (865) 523-7543 or visit www.knoxalliance.com.

The Emporium Center: Héctor Saldivar: Mis Raises (My Roots)

Category: Exhibitions, visual art, Fine Crafts, Free event and Kids, family

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased a new exhibition at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville from August 7-28, 2020. A free reception with the artists will take place on Friday, August 7, from 4:00-7:00 PM to which the public is invited to attend at 50 people at a time. All visitors to the Emporium are asked to wear a mask and maintain physical distancing guidelines. Most of the works are for sale and may be purchased through the close of the exhibition.

Héctor Saldivar was born in Mexico City in 1966. Even though he always considered himself a creative person, it was not until later in life that he embarked on developing his artistic talents. He has participated in events for Casa HoLa (part of HoLa Hora Latina) in Knoxville as well as with the Tennessee Arts Commission in Nashville. He mainly works with papier-mâché and clay, however he also paints with acrylics and oils. He is an alebrijes artist. Alebrijes are brightly colored Mexican folk art sculptures of fantastical (fantasy/mythical) creature. His art honors his Mexican roots. Follow him on Instagram @hectorleosculpture.

The exhibitions are on display at the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, in downtown Knoxville. Exhibition hours are BY APPOINTMENT ONLY, Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM. For more information, please contact the Arts & Culture Alliance at (865) 523-7543 or visit www.knoxalliance.com.

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